Game of Thrones is an American fantasydrama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, the first of which is A Game of Thrones. The show was filmed in Belfast and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, Canada, Croatia, Iceland, Malta, Morocco, Spain, and the United States.[1] The series premiered on HBO in the United States on April 17, 2011, and concluded on May 19, 2019, with 73 episodes broadcast over eight seasons. Set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos, Game of Thrones has several plots and a large ensemble cast, and follows several story arcs. One arc is about the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, and follows a web of alliances and conflicts among the noble dynasties either vying to claim the throne or fighting for independence from it. Another focuses on the last descendant of the realm's deposed ruling dynasty, who has been exiled and is plotting a return to the throne, while another story arc follows the Night's Watch, a brotherhood defending the realm against the fierce peoples and legendary creatures of the North.

Setting

Game of Thrones is roughly based on the storylines of A Song of Ice and Fire,[2][3] set in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and the continent of Essos. The series chronicles the violent dynastic struggles among the realm's noble families for the Iron Throne, while other families fight for independence from it. It opens with additional threats in the icy North and Essos in the east.[4]

Showrunner David Benioff jokingly suggested "The Sopranos in Middle-earth" as Game of Thrones'tagline, referring to its intrigue-filled plot and dark tone in a fantasy setting of magic and dragons.[5] In a 2012 study, out of 40 recent TV drama shows, Game of Thrones ranked second in deaths per episode, averaging 14 deaths.[6]

Themes

The series is generally praised for what is perceived as a sort of medieval realism.[7][8] George R.R. Martin set out to make the story feel more like historical fiction than contemporary fantasy, with less emphasis on magic and sorcery and more on battles, political intrigue, and the characters, believing that magic should be used moderately in the epic fantasy genre.[9][10][11] Martin has stated that "the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves."[12]

A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil, which Martin says does not mirror the real world.[13] Just like people's capacity for good and for evil in real life, Martin explores the questions of redemption and character change.[14] The series allows the audience to view different characters from their perspective, unlike in many other fantasies, and thus the supposed villains can provide their side of the story.[11][15] Benioff said, "George brought a measure of harsh realism to high fantasy. He introduced gray tones into a black-and-white universe."[11]

In early seasons, under the influence of the A Song of Ice and Fire books, main characters were regularly killed off, and this was credited with developing tension among viewers.[16] In later seasons, critics pointed out that certain characters had developed "plot armor" to survive in unlikely circumstances, and attributed this to Game of Thrones deviating from the novels to become more of a traditional television series.[16] The series also reflects the substantial death rates in war.[17][18]

Inspirations and derivations

Although the first season closely follows the events of the first novel, later seasons have made significant changes. According to David Benioff, the series is "about adapting the series as a whole and following the map George laid out for us and hitting the major milestones, but not necessarily each of the stops along the way".[19]

Cast and characters

Game of Thrones has an ensemble cast estimated to be the largest on television;[25] during its third season, 257 cast names were recorded.[26] In 2014, several actor contracts were renegotiated to include a seventh-season option, with raises which reportedly made them among the highest-paid performers on cable TV.[27] In 2016, several actor contracts were again renegotiated, reportedly increasing the salary of five of the main cast members to £2million per episode for the last two seasons, which would make them the highest paid actors on television.[28][29] The main cast is listed below.[30]

Production

Conception and development

In January 2006, David Benioff had a phone conversation with George R. R. Martin's literary agent about the books he represented and became interested in A Song of Ice and Fire, as he had been a fan of fantasy fiction when young but had not read the books before. The literary agent then sent Benioff the series' first four books.[32] Benioff read a few hundred pages of the first novel, A Game of Thrones, shared his enthusiasm with D. B. Weiss, and suggested that they adapt Martin's novels into a television series; Weiss finished the first novel in "maybe 36 hours".[33] They pitched the series to HBO after a five-hour meeting with Martin (himself a veteran screenwriter) in a restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard. According to Benioff, they won Martin over with their answer to his question, "Who is Jon Snow's mother?"[34]

I had worked in Hollywood myself for about 10 years, from the late '80s to the '90s. I'd been on the staff of The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast. All of my first drafts tended to be too big or too expensive. I always hated the process of having to cut. I said, 'I'm sick of this, I'm going to write something that's as big as I want it to be, and it's going to have a cast of characters that go into the thousands, and I'm going to have huge castles, and battles, and dragons.

Before being approached by Benioff and Weiss, Martin had had other meetings with other scriptwriters, most of whom wanted to adapt the series as a feature film. Martin, however, deemed it "unfilmable" and impossible to be done as a feature film, stating that the size of one of his novels is as long as The Lord of the Rings, which had been adapted as three feature films.[35] Similarly, Benioff also said that it would be impossible to turn the novels into a feature film as the scale of the novels is too big for a feature film, and dozens of characters would have to be discarded. Benioff added, "a fantasy movie of this scope, financed by a major studio, would almost certainly need a PG-13 rating. That means no sex, no blood, no profanity. Fuck that."[11] Martin himself was pleased with the suggestion that they adapt it as an HBO series, saying that he "never imagined it anywhere else".[36] "I knew it couldn't be done as a network television series. It's too adult. The level of sex and violence would never have gone through."[35]

The series began development in January 2007.[2] HBO acquired the TV rights to the novels, with Benioff and Weiss as its executive producers, and Martin as a co-executive producer. The intention was for each novel to yield a season's worth of episodes.[2] Initially, Martin would write one episode per season while Benioff and Weiss would write the rest of the episodes.[2][37]Jane Espenson and Bryan Cogman were later added to write one episode apiece the first season.[4]

The first and second drafts of the pilot script by Benioff and Weiss were submitted in August 2007[38] and June 2008,[39] respectively. Although HBO liked both drafts,[39][40] a pilot was not ordered until November 2008;[41] the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike may have delayed the process.[40] The pilot episode, "Winter Is Coming", was first shot in 2009; after a poor reception in a private viewing, HBO demanded an extensive re-shoot (about 90 percent of the episode, with cast and directorial changes).[34][42]

The pilot reportedly cost HBO US$5–10million to produce,[43] while the first season's budget was estimated at $50–60million.[44] In the second season, the series received a 15-percent budget increase for the climactic battle in "Blackwater" (which had an $8million budget).[45][46] Between 2012 and 2015, the average budget per episode increased from $6million[47] to "at least" $8million.[48] The sixth-season budget was over $10million per episode, for a season total of over $100million and a series record.[49]

Although many of the cast returned after the first season, the producers had many new characters to cast for each of the following seasons. Due to the large number of new characters, Benioff and Weiss postponed the introduction of several key characters in the second season and merged several characters into one or assigned plot functions to different characters.[25] Some recurring characters were recast over the years; for example, Gregor Clegane was played by three different actors, while Dean-Charles Chapman who played Tommen Baratheon also played a minor Lannister character.[59]

Writing

George R. R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire, is a series co-executive producer and wrote one episode for each of the first four seasons.

Game of Thrones used seven writers in six seasons. Series creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the showrunners, write most of the episodes each season.[60]

Bryan Cogman, initially a script coordinator for the series,[62] was promoted to producer for the fifth season. Cogman, who wrote at least one episode for the first five seasons, is the only other writer in the writers' room with Benioff and Weiss. Before his promotion, Vanessa Taylor (a writer during the second and third seasons) worked closely with Benioff and Weiss. Dave Hill joined the writing staff for the fifth season after working as an assistant to Benioff and Weiss.[63] Although Martin is not in the writers' room, he reads the script outlines and makes comments.[60]

Benioff and Weiss sometimes assign characters to particular writers; for example, Cogman was assigned to Arya Stark for the fourth season. The writers spend several weeks writing a character outline, including what material from the novels to use and the overarching themes. After these individual outlines are complete, they spend another two to three weeks discussing each main character's individual arc and arranging them episode by episode.[60]

A detailed outline is created, with each of the writers working on a portion to create a script for each episode. Cogman, who wrote two episodes for the fifth season, took a month and a half to complete both scripts. They are then read by Benioff and Weiss, who make notes, and parts of the script are rewritten. All ten episodes are written before filming begins since they are filmed out of order with two units in different countries.[60]

Benioff and Weiss write each of their episodes together, with one of them writing the first half of the script and the other the second half. After that they begin with passing the drafts back and forth to make notes and rewrite parts of it.[36]

Adaptation schedule and episodes

After Game of Thrones began outpacing the published novels in the sixth season, the series was based on a plot outline of the future novels provided by Martin[64] and original content. In April 2016, the showrunners' plan was to shoot 13 more episodes after the sixth season: seven episodes in the seventh season and six episodes in the eighth.[65] Later that month, the series was renewed for a seventh season with a seven-episode order.[66][67] Eight seasons were ordered and filmed, adapting the novels at a rate of about 48 seconds per page for the first three seasons.[68]

The first two seasons adapted one novel each. For the later seasons, its creators see Game of Thrones as an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire as a whole rather than the individual novels;[91] this enables them to move events across novels, according to screen-adaptation requirements.[92]

Filming

The Azure Window at Ras-id-Dwerja, on Gozo, was the site of the Dothraki wedding in season one.

Principal photography for the first season was scheduled to begin on July 26, 2010,[4] and the primary location was the Paint Hall Studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland.[93] Exterior scenes in Northern Ireland were filmed at Sandy Brae in the Mourne Mountains (standing in for Vaes Dothrak), Castle Ward (Winterfell), Saintfield Estates (the Winterfell godswood), Tollymore Forest (outdoor scenes), Cairncastle (the execution site), the Magheramorne quarry (Castle Black), and Shane's Castle (the tourney grounds).[94]Doune Castle in Stirling, Scotland, was also used in the original pilot episode for scenes at Winterfell.[95] The producers initially considered filming the whole series in Scotland, but decided on Northern Ireland because of the availability of studio space.[96]

The first season's southern scenes were filmed in Malta, a change in location from the pilot episode's Moroccan sets.[4] The city of Mdina was used for King's Landing. Filming was also done at Fort Manoel (representing the Sept of Baelor), at the Azure Window on the island of Gozo (the Dothraki wedding site) and at San Anton Palace, Fort Ricasoli, Fort St. Angelo and St. Dominic monastery (all used for scenes in the Red Keep).[94]

Filming of the second season's southern scenes shifted from Malta to Croatia, where the city of Dubrovnik and nearby locations allowed exterior shots of a walled, coastal medieval city. The Walls of Dubrovnik and Fort Lovrijenac were used for scenes in King's Landing, though, exteriors of some local buildings, for example, the Red Keep and the Sept of Baelor, are computer-generated.[97] The island of Lokrum, the St. Dominic monastery in the coastal town of Trogir, the Rector's Palace in Dubrovnik, and the Dubac quarry (a few kilometers east) were used for scenes set in Qarth. Scenes set north of the Wall, in the Frostfangs and at the Fist of the First Men, were filmed in November 2011 in Iceland: on the Vatnajökull glacier near Smyrlabjörg, the Svínafellsjökull glacier near Skaftafell and the Mýrdalsjökull glacier near Vik on Höfðabrekkuheiði.[94][98]

Third-season production returned to Dubrovnik, with the Walls of Dubrovnik, Fort Lovrijenac and nearby locations again used for scenes in King's Landing and the Red Keep. Trsteno Arboretum, a new location, is the garden of the Tyrells in King's Landing. The third season also returned to Morocco (including the city of Essaouira) to film Daenerys' scenes in Essos.[99]Dimmuborgir and the Grjótagjá cave in Iceland were used as well.[98] One scene, with a live bear, was filmed in Los Angeles.[100] The production used three units (Dragon, Wolf and Raven) filming in parallel, six directing teams, 257 cast members and 703 crew members.[26]

Filming of the seven episodes of season 7 began on August 31, 2016, at Titanic Studios in Belfast, with other filming in Iceland, Northern Ireland and many locations in Spain,[106] including Seville, Cáceres, Almodovar del Rio, Santiponce, Zumaia and Bermeo.[107] The series also filmed in Dubrovnik, which is used for location of King's Landing.[108] Filming continued until the end of February 2017 as necessary to ensure winter weather in some of the European locations.[109]

The costumes used in the series drew inspiration from a number of sources, such as Japanese and Persian armour. Dothraki dress resembles that of the Bedouin (one was made out of fish skins to resemble dragon scales), and the Wildlings wear animal skins like the Inuit.[116] Wildling bone armor is made from molds of actual bones, and is assembled with string and latex resembling catgut.[117] Although the extras who play Wildlings and the Night's Watch often wear hats (normal in a cold climate), members of the principal cast usually do not so viewers can recognize the main characters. Björk's Alexander McQueen high-neckline dresses inspired Margaery Tyrell's funnel-neck outfit, and prostitutes' dresses are designed for easy removal.[116] All clothing used is aged for two weeks so it appears realistic on high-definition television.[117]

About two dozen wigs are used for the actresses. Made of human hair and up to 2 feet (61 cm) in length, they cost up to $7,000 each and are washed and styled like real hair. Applying the wigs is time-consuming; Emilia Clarke, for example, requires about two hours to style her brunette hair with a platinum-blonde wig and braids. Other actors, such as Jack Gleeson and Sophie Turner, receive frequent hair coloring. For characters such as Daenerys (Clarke) and her Dothraki, their hair, wigs and costumes are processed to appear as if they have not been washed for weeks.[116]

Makeup

For the first three seasons, Paul Engelen was Game of Thrones' main makeup designer and prosthetic makeup artist with Melissa Lackersteen, Conor O'Sullivan, and Rob Trenton. At the beginning of the fourth season Engelen's team was replaced by Jane Walker and her crew, composed of Ann McEwan and Barrie and Sarah Gower.[113][118]

Because the effects became more complex in subsequent seasons (including CGI creatures, fire, and water), German-based Pixomondo became the lead visual-effects producer; nine of its twelve facilities contributed to the project for season two, with Stuttgart the lead.[120][121] Scenes were also produced by British-based Peanut FX, Canadian-based Spin VFX, and US-based Gradient Effects. "Valar Morghulis" and "Valar Dohaeris" earned Pixomondo Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in 2012 and 2013, respectively.[113]

For season four, HBO added German-based Mackevision to the project.[122] The season-four finale, "The Children", won the 2014 Emmy Award for Visual Effects. Additional producers for season four included Canadian-based Rodeo FX, German-based Scanline VFX and US-based BAKED FX. The muscle and wing movements of the adolescent dragons in seasons four and five were based largely on those of a chicken. Pixomondo retained a team of 22 to 30 people which focused solely on visualizing Daenerys Targaryen's dragons, with the average production time per season of 20 to 22 weeks.[123] For the fifth season, HBO added Canadian-based Image Engine and US-based Crazy Horse Effects to its list of main visual-effects producers.[124][125]

Sound

Unusual for a television series, the sound team receives a rough cut of a full season and approaches it as a ten-hour feature film. Although seasons one and two had different sound teams, one team has been in charge of sound since then.[126] For the series' blood-and-gore sounds, the team often uses a chamois. For dragon screams, mating tortoises and dolphin, seal, lion and bird sounds have been used.[127]

Title sequence

The series' title sequence was created by production studio Elastic for HBO. Creative directorAngus Wall and his collaborators received the 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Main Title Design for the sequence,[128] which depicts a three-dimensional map of the series' fictional world. The map is projected on the inside of a sphere which is centrally lit by a small sun in an armillary sphere.[129] As the camera moves across the map, focusing on the locations of the episode's events, clockwork mechanisms intertwine and allow buildings and other structures to emerge from the map. Accompanied by the title music, the names of the principal cast and creative staff appear. The sequence concludes after about 90 seconds with the title card and brief opening credits indicating the episode's writer(s) and director. Its composition changes as the story progresses, with new locations replacing those featuring less prominently or not at all.[129][130][131]

Music

The music for the series was composed by Ramin Djawadi. The first season's soundtrack, written in about ten weeks before the premiere,[132] was published by Varèse Sarabande in June 2011.[133] Soundtrack albums for subsequent seasons have been released, with tracks by the National, the Hold Steady, and Sigur Rós.[134] Djawadi has composed themes for each of the major houses and also for some of the main characters.[135] The themes may evolve over time, as Daenerys Targaryen's theme started small and then became more powerful after each season. Her theme started first with a single instrument, a cello, and Djawadi later incorporated more instruments for it.[135]

Language

The Westerosi characters of Game of Thrones speak British-accented English, often (but not consistently) with the accent of the English region corresponding to the character's Westerosi region. The Northerner Eddard Stark speaks in actor Sean Bean's native northern accent, and the southern lord Tywin Lannister speaks with a southern accent, while characters from Dorne speak English with a Spanish accent.[136][137] Characters foreign to Westeros often have a non-British accent.[138]

Although the common language of Westeros is represented as English, the producers charged linguist David J. Peterson with constructingDothraki and Valyrian languages based on the few words in the novels;[139] Dothraki and Valyrian dialogue is often subtitled in English. It has been reported that during the series these fictional languages have been heard by more people than the Welsh, Irish, and Scots Gaelic languages combined.[140]

Tourism Ireland has a Game of Thrones-themed marketing campaign similar to New Zealand's Tolkien-related advertising.[143][144] Invest NI and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board also expect the series to generate tourism revenue.[142] According to Arlene Foster, the series has given Northern Ireland the most non-political publicity in its history.[145] The production of Game of Thrones and other TV series also boosted Northern Ireland's creative industries, contributing to an estimated 12.4-percent growth in arts, entertainment, and recreation jobs between 2008 and 2013 (compared with 4.3percent in the rest of the UK during the same period).[146] In September 2018, after the filming had finished, HBO announced plans to convert its filming locations in Northern Ireland into tourist attractions to be opened in 2019.[147]

Tourism organizations elsewhere reported increases in bookings after their locations appeared in Game of Thrones. In 2012, bookings through LateRooms.com increased by 28 percent in Dubrovnik and 13 percent in Iceland. The following year, bookings doubled in Ouarzazate, Morocco (the location of Daenerys' season-three scenes).[148]Game of Thrones has been attributed as a significant factor in the boom of tourism in Iceland that had a strong impact on its economy. Tourist numbers increased by 30% in 2015, followed by another 40% in 2016,[149] with a final figure of 2.4million visitors expected for 2016, which is around seven times the population of the country.[150] However, the increase in tourism to Dubrovnik, with Game of Thrones estimated to be responsible for half of its annual increase over many years, had led to concerns on "over-tourism" and its mayor to impose limits on tourist number in the city.[151][152]

Availability

Broadcast

Game of Thrones is broadcast by HBO in the United States and by its local subsidiaries or other pay television services in other countries, at the same time as in the US or weeks (or months) later. The series' broadcast in China on CCTV, begun in 2014, was heavily edited to remove scenes of sex and violence, in accordance with a Chinese practice of censoring Western television series to prevent what the People's Daily called "negative effects and hidden security dangers". This resulted in viewer complaints about the incoherence of what remained.[153] Broadcasters carrying Game of Thrones include Showcase in Australia; HBO Canada, Super Écran, and Showcase in Canada; HBO Latin America in Latin America; SoHo and Prime in New Zealand, and Sky Atlantic in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[154]

Home media

The ten episodes of the first season of Game of Thrones were released as a DVD and Blu-raybox set on March 6, 2012. The box set includes extra background and behind-the-scenes material but no deleted scenes, since nearly all the footage shot for the first season was used.[155] The box set sold over 350,000 copies in the first week after release, the largest first-week DVD sales ever for an HBO series, and the series set an HBO-series record for digital-download sales.[156] A collector's-edition box set was released in November 2012, combining the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the first season with the first episode of season two. A paperweight in the shape of a dragon egg is included in the set.[157]

DVD-Blu-ray box sets and digital downloads of the second season became available on February 19, 2013.[158] First-day sales broke HBO records, with 241,000 box sets sold and 355,000 episodes downloaded.[159] The third season was made available for purchase as a digital download on the Australian iTunes Store, parallel to the US premiere, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1 on February 18, 2014.[160][161] The fourth season was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 17, 2015,[162] and the fifth season on March 15, 2016.[163] The sixth season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on November 15, 2016.[164] The seventh season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 12, 2007. Beginning in 2016, HBO began issuing Steelbook Blu-ray sets which include both Dolby TrueHD7.1 and Dolby Atmos audio options.[165] In 2018, the first season was released in 4KHDR on Ultra HD Blu-ray.[166]

Copyright infringement

Game of Thrones has been widely pirated, primarily outside the US.[167] According to the file-sharing news website TorrentFreak, Game of Thrones has been the most pirated television series since 2012, which means it has held the record for six years in a row.[168][169][170][171][172][173] Illegal downloads increased to about seven million in the first quarter of 2015, up 45 percent from 2014.[167] An unnamed episode was downloaded about 4,280,000 times through public BitTorrent trackers in 2012, roughly equal to its number of broadcast viewers.[174][175] Piracy rates were particularly high in Australia,[176] and US Ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich issued a statement condemning Australian piracy of the series in 2013.[177]

Delays in availability apart from HBO and its affiliates[178] before 2015 and the cost of subscriptions to these services have been cited as causes of the series' illegal distribution. According to TorrentFreak, a subscription to a service for Game of Thrones would cost up to $25 per month in the United States, up to £26 per episode in the UK and up to $52 per episode in Australia.[179]

For "combating piracy", HBO said in 2013 that it intended to make its content more widely available within a week of the US premiere (including HBO Go).[180] In 2015, the fifth season was simulcast to 170 countries and to HBO Now users.[167] On April 11, the day before the season premiere, screener copies of the first four episodes of the fifth season leaked to a number of file-sharing websites.[181] Within a day of the leak, the files were downloaded over 800,000 times;[182] in one week the illegal downloads reached 32million, with the season-five premiere alone ("The Wars to Come") pirated 13million times.[183] The season-five finale ("Mother's Mercy") was the most simultaneously shared file in the history of the BitTorrent filesharing protocol, with over 250,000 simultaneous sharers and over 1.5million downloads in eight hours.[184] For the sixth season, HBO did not send screeners to the press, to prevent the spread of unlicensed copies and spoilers.[185]

Observers, including series director David Petrarca[186] and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, said that illegal downloads did not hurt the series' prospects; it benefited from "buzz" and social commentary, and the high piracy rate did not significantly translate to lost subscriptions. According to Polygon, HBO's relaxed attitude towards piracy and the sharing of login credentials amounted to a premium-television "free-to-play" model.[187] At a 2015 Oxford Union debate, series co-creator David Benioff said that he was just glad that people watched the series; illegally downloaded episodes sometimes interested viewers enough to buy a copy, especially in countries where Game of Thrones was not televised. Co-creator D. B. Weiss had mixed feelings, saying that the series was expensive to produce and "if it doesn't make the money back, then it ceases to exist". However, he was pleased that so many people "enjoy the show so much they can't wait to get their hands on it."[188] In 2015, Guinness World Records called Game of Thrones the most pirated television program.[189]

IMAX

Beginning on January 23, 2015, the last two episodes of season four were shown in 205 IMAX theaters across the United States; Game of Thrones is the first television series shown in this format.[190] The show earned $686,000 at the box office on its opening day[191] and $1.5million during its opening weekend;[192] the week-long release grossed $1,896,092.[193]

Reception and achievements

Game of Thrones was highly anticipated by fans before its premiere,[194][195] and has become a critical and commercial success. According to The Guardian, by 2014 it was "the biggest drama" and "the most talked about show" on television.[7]

Cultural influence

Although Game of Thrones was dismissed by some critics,[7] its success has been credited with an increase in the popularity of the fantasy genre. On the eve of the second season's premiere, according to CNN, "after this weekend, you may be hard pressed to find someone who isn't a fan of some form of epic fantasy" and cited Ian Bogost as saying that the series continues a trend of successful screen adaptations beginning with Peter Jackson's 2001 The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the Harry Potter films establishing fantasy as a mass-market genre; they are "gateway drugs to fantasy fan culture".[196] The success of the show led to a number of fantasy series being commissioned on television, including a retelling of the Lord of the Rings by Amazon Studios.[197] According to Neil Gaiman, whose works Good Omens and American Gods were adapted for TV, Game of Thrones did help change attitudes towards fantasy on television, but mainly it made big budgets for fantasy series more acceptable.[198] The success of the genre had been attributed by writers to a longing for escapism in popular culture, frequent female nudity and a skill in balancing lighthearted and serious topics (dragons and politics, for example) which provided it with a prestige enjoyed by conventional, top-tier drama series.[7]

The series' popularity increased sales of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels (republished in tie-in editions), which remained at the top of bestseller lists for months. According to The Daily Beast, Game of Thrones was a favorite of sitcom writers and the series has been referred to in other TV series.[199] With other fantasy series, it has been cited as a reason for an increase in the purchase (and abandonment) of huskies and other wolf-like dogs.[200]

Game of Thrones has added to the popular vocabulary. A first season scene in which Petyr Baelish explains his motives (or background) while prostitutes have sex in the background gave rise to the word "sexposition" for providing exposition with sex and nudity.[201] "Dothraki", the series' nomadic horsemen, was ranked fourth in a September 2012 Global Language Monitor list of words from television most used on the Internet.[202] In 2012, the media used "Game of Thrones" as a figure of speech or comparison for situations of intense conflict and deceit, such as US healthcare politics,[203] the Syrian Civil War[204] and the ousting of Bo Xilai from the Chinese government.[205]

"Khaleesi" became more popular as a name for baby girls in the United States. In the novels and the TV series, "khaleesi" is not a name, but the title of the wife of a khal (warlord) in the Dothraki language, held by Daenerys Targaryen.[207]

Game of Thrones has also become a subject of scientific inquiry.[208][209][210] In 2016, researchers published a paper analyzing emotional sentiment in online public discourse associated with the unfolding storyline during the fourth season.[208] The analysis purported to be able to distinguish discussions about the storyline of an episode from media critiques or assessments of a specific actor's performance. In 2018, Australian scientists conducted a survival analysis and examined the mortality among 330 important characters during the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones.[210] In 2019, the Australian branch of the Red Cross conducted a study using international human rights laws to determine which of the Game of Thrones' characters had committed the most war crimes.[211]

First-season reviewers said the series had high production values, a fully realized world and compelling characters.[237] According to Variety, "There may be no show more profitable to its network than 'Game of Thrones' is to HBO. Fully produced by the pay cabler and already a global phenomenon after only one season, the fantasy skein was a gamble that has paid off handsomely".[238] The second season was also well received. Entertainment Weekly praised its "vivid, vital, and just plain fun" storytelling[239] and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the series made a "strong case for being one of TV's best series"; its seriousness made it the only drama comparable to Mad Men or Breaking Bad.[240]The New York Times gave the series a mixed review, criticizing its number of characters, their lack of complexity and a meandering plot.[241]

The third season was extremely well received by critics, with Metacritic giving it a score of 91 out of 100 (indicating "universal acclaim").[217] The fourth season was similarly praised; Metacritic gave it a score of 94 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, again indicating "universal acclaim".[219] The fifth season was also well received by critics and has a score of 91 out of 100 (based on 29 reviews) on Metacritic.[221] The sixth season was praised by critics, though not as highly as its predecessors. It has a score of 73 on Metacritic (based on nine reviews), indicating "generally favorable reviews".[223] The seventh season scored 77 out of 100 (based on twelve reviews) and was praised for its action sequences and focused central characters,[225] but received criticism for its breakneck pace and plot developments that "defied logic."[242][224]

Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly gave the series a 'B' rating, stating that it was ultimately "okay", with both "transcendent moments" and "miserable phases", it was "beloved enough to be criticized by everyone for something". Franich described seasons 3 and 4 as "relentless", seasons 6's ending having a "killer one-two punch", while seasons 7 and 8 were "indifferent".[243]

Sex and violence

Despite its otherwise enthusiastic reception by critics, some have criticized the show for the amount of female nudity, violence, and sexual violence it depicts, and for the manner in which it depicts these themes. The Atlantic called the series' "tendency to ramp up the sex, violence, and—especially—sexual violence" of the source material "the defining weakness" of the adaptation.[244] George R. R. Martin responded that he feels obliged to be truthful about history and human nature, and that rape and sexual violence are common in war; and that omitting them from the narrative would have rung false and undermined one of his novels' themes, its historical realism.[12] HBO said that they "fully support the vision and artistry of Dan and David's exceptional work and we feel this work speaks for itself."[12]

The amount of sex and nudity in the series, especially in scenes that are incidental to the plot, was the focus of much of the criticism aimed at the series in its first and second seasons. Stephen Dillane, who portrays Stannis Baratheon, likened the series' frequent explicit scenes to "German porn from the 1970s".[245]Charlie Anders wrote in io9 that while the first season was replete with light-hearted "sexposition", the second season appeared to focus on distasteful, exploitative, and dehumanizing sex with little informational content.[246]

According to The Washington Post's Anna Holmes, the nude scenes appeared to be aimed mainly at titillating heterosexual men, right down to the Brazilian waxes sported by the women in the series' faux-medieval setting, which made these scenes alienating to other viewers.[247]The Huffington Post's Maureen Ryan likewise noted that Game of Thrones mostly presented women naked, rather than men, and that the excess of "random boobage" undercut any aspirations the series might have to address the oppression of women in a feudal society.[248]Saturday Night Live parodied this aspect of the adaptation in a sketch that portrayed the series as retaining a 13-year-old boy as a consultant whose main concern was showing as many breasts as possible.[246][249]

A scene in the fourth season's episode "Breaker of Chains", in which Jaime Lannister rapes his sister and lover Cersei, triggered a broad public discussion about the series' depiction of sexual violence against women. According to Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times, the scene caused outrage, in part because of comments by director Alex Graves that the scene became "consensual by the end". Itzkoff also wrote that critics fear that "rape has become so pervasive in the drama that it is almost background noise: a routine and unshocking occurrence".[12] Sonia Saraiya of The A.V. Club wrote that the series' choice to portray this sexual act, and a similar one between Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo in the first season—both described as consensual in the source novels—as a rape appeared to be an act of "exploitation for shock value".[253]

In the fifth season's episode "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken", Sansa Stark is raped by Ramsay Bolton. Most reviewers, including those from Vanity Fair, Salon, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast, found the scene gratuitous and artistically unnecessary.[244][254][255][256] For example, Joanna Robinson, writing for Vanity Fair, said that the scene "undercuts all the agency that's been growing in Sansa since the end of last season."[257] In contrast, Sara Stewart of The New York Post wondered why viewers were not similarly upset about the many background and minor characters who'd undergone similar or worse treatment.[258] In response to the scene, pop culture website The Mary Sue announced that it would cease coverage of the series because of the repeated use of rape as a plot device,[259] and US Senator Claire McCaskill said that she would no longer watch it.[260]

As the sixth and seventh seasons saw Daenerys, Sansa, and Cersei assume ruling positions, Alyssa Rosenberg of The Washington Post noted that the series could be seen as a "long-arc revenge fantasy about what happens when women who have been brutalized and raped gain power"—namely, that their past leaves them too broken to do anything but commit brutal acts in their own turn, and that their personal liberation does not effect the social change needed to protect others from suffering.[261]Time reported before the seventh season that "Even if Benioff and Weiss don't always admit it, the show has changed. Scenes in which exposition is delivered in one brothel or another, for example, have been pared back".[262]

Lighting issues

The lighting, or lack of light, in darker scenes has been a recurring point of criticism since season 6 of the series.[263][264][265][266] In 2016, Bustle's Caitlyn Callegari listed 31 examples of scenes where the lighting caused viewers problems ranging from not being able to tell a character's hair color to not being able to see what was going on.[267] Some reviewers have noted this is part of a wider trend[268] among shows that are made by people who have experience working primarily on films, suggesting they "haven't grasped the nuances (or lack thereof)" of television as a medium, especially the differences between watching a scene on a television screen versus watching it on the big screen in a movie theater.[269]

In a 2017 interview, Robert McLachlan, a cinematographer working on the show, explained the lack of lighting as an artistic choice: "we're trying to be as naturalistic as possible".[270][271] The criticism reached a high point during "The Long Night", the third episode of season 8.[272][273] Barely minutes into the episode, viewers took to social media sites such as Twitter to express their discontent about the fact that they were having severe difficulties watching the battle and trying to figure out what was going on.[274][275][276][277]

BBC News said in 2013 that "the passion and the extreme devotion of fans" had created a phenomenon unlike anything related to other popular TV series, manifesting itself in fan fiction,[285]Game of Thrones-themed burlesque routines and parents naming their children after series characters; writers quoted attributed this success to the rich detail, moral ambiguity, sexual explicitness and epic scale of the series and novels.[286] The previous year, "Arya" was the fastest-rising girl's name in the US after it jumped in popularity from 711th to 413th place.[287]

As of 2013[update], about 58 percent of series viewers were male and 42 percent female, and the average male viewer was 41 years old.[288][289] According to SBS Broadcasting Group marketing director Helen Kellie, Game of Thrones has a high fan-engagement rate; 5.5 percent of the series' 2.9million Facebook fans talked online about the series in 2012, compared to 1.8percent of the more than ten million fans of True Blood (HBO's other fantasy series).[290] Vulture.com cited Westeros.org and WinterIsComing.net (news and discussion forums), ToweroftheHand.com (which organizes communal readings of the novels) and Podcastoficeandfire.com as fan sites dedicated to the TV and novel series;[278] and podcasts cover Game of Thrones.[291]

In 2014, the fourth season received four Emmys from 19 nominations, which included Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Dinklage), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Lena Headey), Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Rigg), Outstanding Directing ("The Watchers on the Wall") and Outstanding Writing ("The Children").[113]

The 2015 fifth season won the most Primetime Emmy Awards for a series in a year (12 awards from 24 nominations), including Outstanding Drama Series; other wins included Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Dinklage), Outstanding Directing ("Mother's Mercy") and Outstanding Writing ("Mother's Mercy"), and eight were Creative Arts Emmy Awards.[301]

Viewer numbers

The first season averaged 2.5million viewers for its first Sunday-night screenings and a gross audience (including repeats and on-demand viewings) of 9.3million viewers per episode.[306] For its second season, the series had an average gross audience of 11.6million viewers.[307] The third season was seen by 14.2million viewers, making Game of Thrones the second-most-viewed HBO series (after The Sopranos).[308][309] For the fourth season, HBO said that its average gross audience of 18.4million viewers (later adjusted to 18.6million) had passed The Sopranos for the record.[310][311]

By the sixth season the average per-episode gross viewing figure had increased to over 25million, with nearly 40 percent of viewers watching on HBO digital platforms.[312] In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook likes found that Game of Thrones was "much more popular in cities than in the countryside, probably the only show involving zombies that is".[313] By season seven, average viewer numbers had increased to 32.8million per episode across all platforms.[314][315]

The series set records on pay-television channels in the United Kingdom (with a 2016 average audience of more than five million on all platforms)[316] and Australia (with a cumulative average audience of 1.2million).[317]

Merchandise and exhibition

Game of Thrones merchandise in HBO's New York City store

HBO has licensed a variety of merchandise based on Game of Thrones, including games, replica weapons and armor, jewelry, bobblehead dolls by Funko, beer by Ommegang and apparel.[322] High-end merchandise includes a $10,500 Ulysse Nardin wristwatch[323] and a $30,000 resin replica of the Iron Throne.[324] In 2013 and 2014, a traveling exhibition of costumes, props, armor and weapons from the series visited major cities in Europe and the Americas.[325]

Accompanying material

Thronecast: The Official Guide to Game of Thrones, a series of podcasts presented by Geoff Lloyd and produced by Koink, has been released on the Sky Atlantic website and the UK iTunes store during the series' run; a new podcast, with analysis and cast interviews, is released after each episode.[326] In 2014 and 2015 HBO commissioned Catch the Throne, two rap albums about the series.[327][328]

A companion book, Inside HBO's Game of Thrones (ISBN978-1-4521-1010-3) by series writer Bryan Cogman, was published on September 27, 2012. The 192-page book, illustrated with concept art and behind-the-scenes photographs, covers the creation of the series' first two seasons and its principal characters and families.[329]

Each season's Blu-ray and DVD set contains several short animated sequences narrated by the cast as their characters as they detail events in the history of Westeros.[334] For the seventh season, this is to include the animated prequel series Game of Thrones: Conquest & Rebellion, illustrated in a different animation style than previous videos. The series focuses on Aegon Targaryen's conquest of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.[335]

Martin said that all the concepts under discussion were prequels, although he believes the term "successor show" applies better to these projects, as they are not Game of Thrones spin-offs in the traditional sense. He ruled out Robert's Rebellion (the overthrow of Daenerys' father by Robert Baratheon) as a possible idea and revealed that some may be set outside Westeros.[339] Later, he stated: "at least two of them are solidly based on material in Fire and Blood."[340]

On June 8, 2018, HBO commissioned a pilot to a Game of Thrones prequel series from Goldman as showrunner and Martin as co-creator.[341] The accepted prequel will take place in the Age of Heroes, a period that begins roughly 10,000 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Notable events of that period include the foundation of powerful Houses, the Long Night when the White Walkers first descended upon Westeros, and the Andal Invasion when the Andals invaded from Essos and conquered most of Westeros.[342] Writing in a blog post in June 2018, Martin suggested The Long Night as a title for the upcoming series.[343]S. J. Clarkson will direct and executive produce the pilot, which is scheduled to begin filming in mid-2019 in Northern Ireland and other locations.[344]Naomi Watts has been cast as the female lead, playing "a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret."[345] Other series regulars include: Josh Whitehouse, Toby Regbo, Ivanno Jeremiah, Georgie Henley, Naomi Ackie, Denise Gough, Jamie Campbell Bower, Sheila Atim, Alex Sharp, Miranda Richardson, Marquis Rodriguez, John Simm, Richard McCabe, John Heffernan, and Dixie Egerickx.[346] On May 13, 2019 it was reported that the series had begun filming under the working title Bloodmoon.[347]

Regarding the other four projects, HBO president of programming Casey Bloys said that some of them have been abandoned completely, while others remain as possibilities for the future.[348] In April 2019, Cogman confirmed his prequel would not be moving forward, stating it "is not happening and will not happen. HBO decided to go a different way."[349] In May 2019, Martin stated that the two other projects were still in the script stage, but are "edging closer".[350]

^Sharf, Zack (April 17, 2019). "Does 'Game of Thrones' Have an 'Ozark' Problem? Season 8 Is So Dark It's Hard to See". IndieWire. Retrieved May 7, 2019. Fear's jokey comment encapsulated one of the biggest fan criticisms about the "Game of Thrones" premiere: The show is so visually dark that viewers can't even see what's happening on screen. Many fans took to social media during the episode to complain about the color palette, with some wondering if it was their TV brightness setting that was the issue.

^Callegari, Caitlyn (May 29, 2016). "31 Times 'Game of Thrones' Needed To Lighten Up, Literally". Bustle. Retrieved May 7, 2019. Game of Thrones needs to turn on the lights, or else I am sending them my ophthalmologist bill. For real, GoT powers that be, it's super hard to squint for a straight hour every week because your episodes are so freakin' dark.

^Dessem, Matthew (June 29, 2016). "Why TV Shows Are Darker Than They've Ever Been". Slate. Retrieved May 7, 2019. Watching Game of Thrones this season, you may have asked yourself: Is something wrong with my television? Surely there is some other setting that would brighten up the inside of Bran Stark's cave, or heighten the contrast between Cersei Lannister's robes and the shadowy chambers of her prison cell. But no, that's just the way the show is supposed to look. And Game of Thrones is not alone: HBO has made a cottage industry of dimly-lit hourlong dramas

^Burgess, Genevieve (March 19, 2016). "Why is TV, Literally, So Dark?". Pajiba. Retrieved May 7, 2019. A lot of these shows are also made by people who have experience working primarily on films, and film aesthetic has always been visually darker than TV. Because films are meant to be watched on very large screens in very dark rooms, while most TV is watched on smaller screens in brightly lit rooms. It seems the people making these shows aren't evaluating the lighting for the proper venue.

^Paine, Hannah (April 29, 2019). "Game of Thrones fans fume over 'too dark' episode". news.com.au. Retrieved May 7, 2019. It's not the first time Game of Thrones has come under fire for its shots being too dark, however. According to one of the show's cinematographers, it's a very deliberate choice.